The outside courts at Wimbledon are filled with doubles matches midway through the opening week. Spectators with ground tickets, which at SW19 cost about £30, flock to these entertaining contests, drinking Pimm’s and watching tennis.If the ATP leadership has its way, doubles draws at Tour-level events will begin to shrink come 2028, as will the prize money for the two-man team event, which is already down to a 80-20 split with singles. Rumblings within the player community, read as singles players, grew louder when some of them, despite being ranked in the top-40, took home less prize money than the top-ranked doubles players at the end of the season.One of the biggest challenges facing men’s doubles is its growing separation from the singles game. The WTA Tour, which is not currently considering similar changes, has more crossover between the singles and doubles rankings. Five of the top-10 women in the doubles rankings — Taylor Townsend, Katerina Siniakova, Elise Mertens, Zhang Shuai and Jeļena Ostapenko – are ranked highly in singles too. Among the men, by contrast, only four players from the ATP singles top-100 also feature in the doubles top-100, they are Ben Shelton, Lorenzo Musetti, Lorenzo Sonego and Rinky Hijikata.It is a completely different set of players in the two categories not seen before the Bryan Brothers, twins Mike and Bob Bryan, who started out as doubles specialists. That is precisely what the ATP appears intent on curbing, players who develop primarily as doubles specialists from the start.The plan is to shrink draw sizes, which currently stand at 16 for doubles and 28 for singles at ATP 250 events. At the 500 level, it is 16 for doubles and 32 for singles, while Masters 1000 tournaments feature 16 for doubles and 32 for singles. That could be reduced to eight teams at ATP 250 and 500 events, and 16 teams at Masters 1000 level.Alongside this, prize money distribution could shift further towards singles, potentially moving to a 90-10 split, only a marginal change from what Grand Slam tournaments already operate with.By 2028, projected prize money for doubles is likely to be around $60 million. The Tour is not aiming to reduce overall spending, but rather to reallocate the funds, with as much as $20 million potentially being redirected toward early-round singles payouts by 2028.This will perhaps impact Indians, who have nine players in the top-200 of which only three are in the top-100 and one, Yuki Bhambri, in the top-50.Earlier this week, doubles players met with their representatives in the player council, Marcelo Arevalo and Andrea Vavassori, to discuss the scenario they are faced with. Balaji, ranked 59 in the individual doubles ranking, told TOI, “If they make that change, half of us will not be playing tennis anymore. I have to find another job. If they reduce the draw to eight, of which there will be two wildcards, what’s left?”Indians had little luck in the men’s doubles at Wimbledon on Thursday, US Open semi-finalists Yuki Bhambri and Michael Venus went down to alternates Jean-Julien Rojer and Theodore Winegar 3-6, 4-6. Earlier, Sriram Balaji and his Brazilian partner Marcelo Demoliner failed to capitalise on a strong start to go down 6-3, 6-7 (2), 4-6 to Sander Gille and Sem Verbeek.Alternates Anirudh Chandrasekar and Japan’s Takeru Yuzuki went down to Ignacio Buse and Marco Trungelliti 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-7 (7).
